Season 39 is already in full swing, and if you're stuck somewhere between Epic and Legend staring at the same stars every day, this guide is for you. Getting to Mythical Glory is not about outplaying five enemies at once. It's about making fewer mistakes, playing at the right time, and understanding what actually moves the needle in solo queue.
#When to Queue: Timing Is a Real Advantage
The quality of your teammates and opponents shifts dramatically depending on when you play. This isn't conspiracy theory. It's player demographics.
Avoid these windows:
- 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM local time. School dismissal hours flood the server with players who don't understand draft pick or objective rotation.
- Friday and Saturday evenings. Highest concurrent players = largest skill variance in matchmaking.
Target these windows:
- 10:00 PM to 1:00 AM. Later-night players tend to be more focused and less likely to troll.
- Early mornings (6:00 AM to 9:00 AM). Server is quieter, queue times are slightly longer, but match quality is consistently better.
- Weekday afternoons (after 3:30 PM). Working adults and serious players who squeezed a session before dinner.
One more rule: stop after two consecutive losses. Your mental state degrades, your decision-making gets reactive, and you start forcing plays. Two losses is the signal. Log off, do something else, come back tomorrow.
#Hero Pool Strategy: Less Is More
The biggest mistake Epic and Legend players make is having 15 heroes in rotation and mastering none of them. You cannot climb by playing a different hero every game. The meta knowledge you need is hero-specific. Positioning, timing, combo windows, what to build when you're behind. None of that transfers between heroes.
Your target: 2 primary heroes, 1 flex backup.
Your two primaries should be in the same role so you're always queuing for the same lane. Your flex backup covers situations where both of your primaries are banned or hard-countered.
When picking your pool, apply this filter:
- Can this hero carry when my team is passive? If your whole team plays safe and waits, can you still create pressure alone?
- Does this hero work in most team comps? If the answer is "only if we have a tank," that's a coordination dependency you can't guarantee in solo queue.
- Can I hit 60+ games on this hero this season? Mastery only comes from repetition. Under 40 games on a hero and you're still making mechanical errors.
For reference, the S39 meta rewards heroes with self-sufficient pressure. Hayabusa in jungle, Cici in EXP, and Xavier in mid are all heroes that can create and capitalise on advantages without needing their team to engage first. Check the current tier list to confirm what's sitting at S-tier before you commit to a pool.
If your main hero gets banned, don't panic-pick something you've played 10 times. Have your backup ready before queue. Know who you're picking second if your first is gone.
#Macro Tips: Objectives Win Games
Most players in Legend lose because of objective mistakes, not mechanical ones. They win lane, then don't know what to do with the advantage. Here's the framework.
Turtle Priority
The first Turtle spawns at 2:00 minutes. Your team should be finishing it by 2:15 at the latest.
The preparation window is 1:30 to 1:50. Clear your minion wave, move toward the Turtle pit, and establish vision in the nearby bushes. If you arrive at 2:00 with an uncleared wave, you're choosing between your wave gold and the Turtle buff. You shouldn't be making that choice.
When your team is contesting Turtle, the rule is simple: if three or more enemies are rotating in, disengage. You will not win a 3v5 Turtle fight just because you're hitting it. Let it go. The gold lost to backing off is far less than four deaths and a lane collapse.
Every Turtle after the first follows the same logic. After a kill or a successful teamfight where you're up in numbers, the chain is: kill converts > push the nearest lane > group for Turtle or Lord.
Lord Priority
Lord spawns at 8:00 minutes. The rule here is also simple: don't start Lord unless at least three enemies are dead.
If you start Lord at 50% HP and two enemies arrive, you're fighting them while Lord deals damage to you. One mistake and Lord resets. The correct play is to secure kills first, then walk to Lord. When you're on Lord, post one teammate on watch at the river entrance with vision. The second they spot an incoming rotation, you either finish Lord in the next 10 seconds or you leave.
Split push with a Lord buff is one of the strongest win conditions in this meta. After Lord activates, don't group mid blindly. Push the side lane that's already under pressure. Three on one side, two on the other forces a decision the enemy can't correctly answer.
Mid Lane Control
Control mid lane and you control the map. This hasn't changed since Season 1. In Legend, players let mid lane collapse because they're busy fighting in the jungle or trading without pressure.
After Turtle, the mage or mid laner should clear mid immediately. The outer mid turret falling before 5:00 minutes opens rotations to both sides and gives your team a huge pathing advantage. If you're winning mid lane but your team isn't following up, push the outer turret yourself. Don't wait.
#The Mental Game: Handling Loss Streaks
Tilt is the single biggest rating destroyer in solo queue. It's not the dark system, it's not trolls. It's you playing 12 straight games when you should have stopped at game 6.
Recognise these signals:
- You're flaming in chat after a loss.
- You're picking based on frustration rather than the draft.
- Your games are going 20+ minutes when your hero normally ends at 14.
- You're blaming every single loss on teammates.
When you identify any of these, stop immediately. The session is cooked.
Practical resets:
- Spend 20 minutes in training mode on your main hero. Mechanical repetition calms the brain down.
- Play one Classic game, not Ranked. Remove the pressure.
- Review your last Ranked replay. Not to find teammates' mistakes, but to find one decision you made that cost your team positioning or an objective.
Loss protection matters here too. Roamer and support roles earn additional protection points in S39's role system. If you're on a loss streak, swap to your secondary role roamer pick. Absorbing the mental damage while protecting stars is smarter than forcing carries in a tilted state.
#Role-Specific Tips for Each Lane
Jungler
Your win condition is not farming. It's converting leads. A jungler who finishes all six jungle camps but doesn't appear in lane fights until minute 10 is handing the game to the enemy.
Early rotation priority:
- Clear your buff side, then path toward the first Turtle at 1:45.
- After Turtle, gank the lane with the earliest pressure advantage. That's usually the lane where your laner already pushed the enemy under their turret.
- After the gank, return to jungle, clear the opposite buff, and repeat.
In S39, the best solo rank junglers reward aggression with self-sufficiency. Hayabusa and Lancelot work because they don't need their team to set up kills. They create the opportunity and execute it alone. If your team doesn't follow a gank, you still get the kill. That's the type of jungler you want in solo queue.
Always check the jungler tier list before committing to your S39 jungle pool.
EXP Lane
Your lane is the furthest from everything, which means you're often left to fend for yourself. That's actually an advantage if you understand what you're supposed to do with it.
EXP lane priorities:
- Win or survive your lane matchup until level 4.
- After level 4, you should have enough stats to trade aggressively. If you've been farming safely, you're ahead in level.
- At 5:00, when outer turret shields drop, push your outer turret if you've won lane. Then immediately rotate mid or toward Lord pit.
- In teamfights, your job is to reach the enemy backline. Not the tank. The mage or marksman.
Cici is strong right now precisely because she self-heals, sticks to targets, and creates chaos in the backline without needing the team to engage first. Against most melee fighters, stay mobile with your yoyo and poke before committing to the full combo. Check the Best EXP Lane Heroes for S39 list for current tier picks.
Against an EXP bully who hard-counters you, don't feed. Play under turret, farm minions, and call for jungle assistance at level 4 once you have your skills leveled. Dying twice before level 4 and giving a bounty is worse than losing 20 CS to a turret.
Gold Lane (Marksman)
You are the most carried player early and the most important player late. Respect that dynamic.
Phase 1 (0:00 to 2:00): Farm safely. Don't push past the river. You're not a fighter, and a 1v1 with an off-laner or enemy roamer at level 2 almost always ends badly.
Phase 2 (2:00 to 5:00): After Turtle, the enemy jungler will often rotate to your lane. This is the most dangerous window. Keep river vision. If the enemy jungler's location is unknown, hug your turret. Losing 40 gold to a safe wave clear is far better than dying and giving the enemy a double bounty.
Phase 3 (8:00 onwards): This is your time. Position at the edge of fights, never in front of your frontline. Your job is to deal sustained damage while alive, not to chunk someone and die immediately.
Wanwan's percent true damage shreds tanks regardless of how far behind you are. Ixia's long range lets you contribute without overextending. Both are strong S39 gold lane picks who work even when your support is unresponsive.
Mid Lane
Mid lane is the most high-impact solo carry role in this meta. You control rotation speed, vision depth, and teamfight presence all at once.
The mid lane rotation loop:
- Clear wave fast. Get to level 4 first if possible.
- Rotate to assist whichever side lane has a kill opportunity. Don't wander randomly. Rotate with intent.
- Return mid to clear before the wave crashes your turret.
- Repeat.
Xavier is the S39 mid lane carry that rewards patient players. His passive Transcendence stacks reward hitting skillshots. His S1 + S2 into ultimate combo locks down and deletes squishies. At range, he's nearly impossible to reach for melee assassins. Play him when the enemy team has few gap-closers.
In Legend and Epic, mid laners frequently push deep and die. Don't be that player. Clear wave, rotate, return. That simple loop, done consistently, generates more stars than any mechanical outplay.
Roamer (Support/Tank)
Roaming in solo queue is genuinely underrated for climbing. You get bonus protection points under the role system, which means you bleed fewer stars on a loss streak. And a good roamer in Legend can swing games that a carry can't.
Roam priority list:
- Level 1: be at the Turtle pit. Set the vision before 2:00. Your team fights better when they know where the enemy is.
- Early game: stay near your most aggressive carry. Not the one who's ahead, the one who's likely to overextend and die without support.
- Teamfights: engage only when your team is within 1.5 seconds of follow-up distance. Engaging into empty air gets you killed and your team disengages.
- Lord phase: don't start Lord without standing between the pit entrance and the enemy jungle. Zone the path, not the Lord itself.
Tigreal with Flicker is still one of the most decision-making-friendly roamers in Legend. One correctly timed Implosion + Flicker in a packed fight reverses a deficit. You don't need the flashiest hero. You need the one that punishes enemy clustering, and in Legend, enemies cluster constantly.
#The Checklist Before Every Ranked Game
Before you lock in, run through this in 30 seconds:
- Are you mentally fresh? (If you just lost two straight, the answer is no.)
- Do you know your two hero options for this game based on the enemy draft?
- Is someone on your team already filling jungler? (If not, consider flexing.)
- What's the enemy's strongest win condition? Know it before the game starts.
- What's the first objective your team should target?
The players who reach Mythical Glory aren't necessarily the best mechanically. They're the most consistent. Same heroes, same mental habits, same objective priorities every game. That consistency compounds over 50 games in a way that flashy plays never do.
Climb smart. See you in Mythic.
#Frequently Asked Questions
What rank should I start pushing in Season 39?
Wait until your MMR stabilises after the season reset, usually around 1 to 2 weeks in. Players who start ranked immediately often get mismatched and build a poor win rate early, which tanks their MMR for the rest of the season.
How many heroes should I have in my pool for ranked?
Two primary heroes in your main role and one flex backup. Any more than three and you're spreading practice time too thin. Mastery at 60+ games per hero is the target before you rely on them in ranked.
What's the best role for solo rank in S39?
Jungler and mid lane offer the most carry potential because you directly control early objectives and can rotate to influence all three lanes. Roamer is the safest option for star protection due to bonus protection points under the role lock system.
How do I stop tilting during a loss streak?
Stop after two consecutive losses, no exceptions. Spend time in training mode or watch a replay instead of queueing again. The compounding effect of tilted decision-making is far more damaging than the stars you'd recover in one more game.
What is the best time to play ranked in MLBB?
Late night (10:00 PM onwards) and early morning queues generally produce better match quality because you avoid school-hours traffic. Weekday afternoons after 3:30 PM are also solid windows.